Empty water reservoirs, severe water rationing, and electrical blackouts are the new status quo in major cities across southeastern Brazil where the worst drought in 35 years has desiccated the region. A new NASA study estimates ...

Seaweed extracts are used widely in agriculture and horticulture production systems. Benefits of the extracts can include early seed germination and establishment, improved crop performance and yield, increased resistance ...

In the future, the Pacific Ocean's temperature cycles could disrupt more than just December fishing. A study published in Nature Communications suggests that the weather patterns known as El Nino and La Nina could lead to ...

As is well known now, California is in its fourth year of drought. As a result, mass mortality of trees and shrubs is happening more quickly than researchers can quantify. Rapid changes in vegetation cover are already leading ...

(Phys.org)—A trio of researchers with the University of Regina and University of Western Ontario, both in Canada, has found that a history of drought in the areas that feed the Athabasca River indicates that droughts are ...

Park Williams, 34, and a California native, is a bioclimatologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. He is lead author on a recently published paper linking the California drought to global warming. ...

Drought

A drought (or drouth [archaic]) is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region. Although droughts can persist for several years, even a short, intense drought can cause significant damage and harm the local economy.

This global phenomenon has a widespread impact on agriculture. The United Nations estimates that an area of fertile soil the size of Ukraine is lost every year because of drought, deforestation, and climate instability. Lengthy periods of drought have long been a key trigger for mass migration and played a key role in a number of ongoing migrations and other humanitarian crises in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel.